2012 map could be deja vu for Obama

Some political scientists and Democratic strategists believe it’s now possible that President Barack Obama could replicate his break-out Electoral College map from 2008, with the exception of Indiana, even if the popular vote is closer than four years ago.

Based on a recent spate of public polls, Mitt Romney is currently trailing by as much as 10 points in Ohio (18 electoral votes), 9 points in Florida (29) and 8 points in Virginia (13). A loss of any of those three states — but especially Florida — would be a big blow and make the GOP nominee’s path to 270 electoral votes much narrower.

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Democratic strategist Tad Devine thinks Obama could win an Electoral College blowout if Romney doesn’t turn his campaign around in the first debate this Wednesday in Denver.

“He’s in a position to get close to 350 electoral votes, without a doubt,” said Devine, who played key roles for Al Gore in 2000 and John Kerry in 2004. “The president and his campaign successfully identified states where they could beat Romney, set out to define Romney in those places and did so well through the course of the spring and summer.”

Republicans, and the Romney campaign, fiercely dispute the public polling, insisting that it oversamples Democrats and that the race will tighten before Nov. 6. But after the nail-biter elections of 2000 and 2004 — and polls all year showing a close 2012 contest — there’s now a plausible scenario in which the incumbent garners a healthy Electoral Vote majority.

“The bad news for Romney is his core states keep him under 200 electoral votes,” said Carleton College political science professor Steven Schier. “It may well be that the time and investment both in shoe-leather, get-out-the-vote efforts, in media, in candidate visits, in advertising that Obama invested this summer in the key states may produce a firewall for the Electoral College in November.”

In 2008, Obama carried nine states that George W. Bush won four years earlier. They are: Colorado (9), Florida (29), Indiana (11), Iowa (6), Nevada (6), New Mexico (5), North Carolina (15), Ohio (18) and Virginia (13). These are worth a total of 112 votes.

Ohio, Florida and Virginia amount to the lion’s share of those votes at 58 and are a big part of Romney’s current problem.

One of the nine Bush states Obama carried, New Mexico is so solid for Obama that the Republican National Committee recently diverted staff elsewhere. Indiana, meanwhile, looks safe for Romney.

Of the remaining seven, the more historically conservative North Carolina is Romney’s best pick-up opportunity. Obama won the state in 2008 by less than one-half of one percent — just 14,000 votes of 4.2 million cast — on a surge of African-American turnout. But two polls conducted last week — including one by a Republican-aligned firm — gave the president a slight lead.

“I’m pretty confident if the election were held today, [Obama would] win everything but Indiana and North Carolina,” said Tom Jensen, a Democratic pollster who runs Public Policy Polling. “He’s got a cushion in all of them.”

The re-election of George W. Bush was an affirmation of electoral stupidity. After convincing us that Sadam Hussien's WMD were an unacceptable threat to peace justifying the killing of thousands of Iraqis and Americans it turned out there weren't any. Re-election of Barack Obama will suggest that stupidity wasn't the cause of the Bush re-election. It seems that Obama and Bush may have something in common, earnest incompetence. Amazingly, that may be sufficient for us.

Interesting to see how now republicans have only two hopes to win... an incredible performance in the debates (unlikely) or a very low democratic turnout for the elections. I guess they don't get that a prurality of Americas do in fact like Obama. Makes sense... why would they vote for a guy who's only argument is that Obama has not been able to recover faster from a crisis the same policies that he supports created?

Some political scientists and Democratic strategists believe it’s now possible that President Barack Obama could replicate his break-out Electoral College map from 2008, with the exception of Indiana, even if the popular vote is closer than four years ago.

That's somewhat of a leap.

I agree that Obama will win a close popular vote (51 to 48.7).

But In my opinion, I think Romney has a decent chance to win these states:

The lamestream media is not reporting the facts on the polls. The sampling is heavily Democrat skewed. You can't assume the map will be the same as 2008 because of the results of the 2010 election. Again, lies, lies, more lies.

I'm so proud that it looks like my country is finally seeing through the nonsense and destruction of the GOP platform, and the phony "competence" of the greedy robot Mitt Romney, and are set to carry Barack Obama to a second term.

Obama is not perfect - but he's not a Marxist, he's not a socialist, he's not corrupt, and he's not stupid.

In four years, facing an obstructionist Republican Congress, let's look at what he's done. He's pushed for the toughest Wall Street reforms he could get from a Congress that's in the tank for Big Finance; he achieved a health care reform bill that will cover millions more Americans while driving costs OUT of the system; he got Bin Laden, showed a steady hand in dealing with Libya, and against the wishes of the left-wing he has stepped up drone attacks to keep America safe. He's wound down the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan like he said he would, and like Bush was unable/unwilling to do.

And on the economy, after inheriting worse conditions than any modern President has ever seen (due to reckless GOP policies, let's see - he pushed through an unpopular auto bailout that saved America's auto industry against the hand-wringing of GOPers like Romney, and he pushed through a critical stimulus package which by all accounts saved millions of jobs. If not for the radical forced focus on deficits by the GOP (which during a recession is madness) , which resulted in a net job loss in the public sector, the economy would be doing much better. Even so, there's been a net gain of millions of public sector jobs since he took office.

Not enough to get us back to where we were before Republicans wrecked the place. But give him a little more time. Sorry GOP, we're not ready to turn the keys back to the very folks who caused all the mess in the first place, and who promise to further weaken the middle class in favor of the John Galts and Mitt Romneys of the world.

Good morning DRONES, do you really in the deepest part of that mush filled brain believe that OBAMA is leading in any poll? Too funny, people cannot wait to sent this turd back to Chicago! Hurry up already.......Oh yeah, tell David Axelrod and Valerie Jarrett to shove it up their collective azzes!